but a well placed knight is better than well placed bishop. (mostly)
yet i still love bishops <3
Bishops and Knights are equal
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Why is a bishop better than a knight?!...it can only control half the squares on the board. I understand the synergy argument of why a bishop pair is superior to a knight pair or KB pair, but a lone bishop against a lone knight? Even Capa said that Q+N > Q+B.
They are equal as you said but in the endgame a well placed bishop can make a knight useless. Knights are good for smothered mates and closed positions. Bishops are good in opened positions. In terms of relative point values bishops are worth a bit more than knights.
Dec 29, 2011
0
#5
I would say the answer to which is better depends entirely on the status of the game and the preferred playing style of the player.
KC
Knights are better because they can leap over pieces which is really cool...
End game, I find bishops are better with a nice open field, leading up to I find the knights better, given on a crowded board they can 'jump over' other pieces and can kill around corners.
Having said this, all through the game both are valuable. If it came to sacrificing a knight or a bishop, it would very much depend on particular nuances of the game and the timeline of the game.
Brosche
wtgr wrote:
End game, I find bishops are better with a nice open field, leading up to I find the knights better, given on a crowded board they can 'jump over' other pieces and can kill around corners.
Having said this, all through the game both are valuable. If it came to sacrificing a knight or a bishop, it would very much depend on particular nuances of the game and the timeline of the game.
Brosche
Very well said specially synergy betwen 2 bishops or a Knight and aqueen need to be mentioned too.
Knights are great SACRIFICIAL MIDGAME pieces. Bishops are great for endgames and taking control of the board. Knights annoy people more. You can fork king and rook, rook and rook, queen and rook, etc. So, GO KNIGHTS!
Maybe it's just idiosyncratic as to whether one prefers Knights or Bishops. I tend to prefer Knights, in spite of my moniker, and know that there is few things so aggravating in chess as to be plagued by a Knight which is running amok among my pieces which I can't pin down. Another thing is that I rarely have both Bishops much past the opening, and a lone Bishop can be pretty useless. Just saying'.
bigegg1000 wrote:
In the opening knights are better as they develop faster.In the middlegame they are equal. While knights can create big forks the bishop creates many pins.In the endgame bishops should be better since in such an open board bishops can move faster and further than knights.
I also agree with the fact that knights are better at the beginning, about equal midgame, and that bishops are better near the end of the game.
To support that, you can mate with 2 bishops and king, but cannot with 2 knights and a king.
A bishop may control more squares than a knight, but those squares are all of the same color and the said bishop has no access to 32 of the remaining squares.
If the king is worth 4 pawns in the endgame (more than either of the minor pieces) and is able to simply sidestep the squares the lone enemy bishop can control, then couldn't a king and knight coordinate with each other more effectively to defend their own pawns to allow 1 of them to advance, such that the blockading bishop would eventually be forced to sacrifice itself to prevent enemy pawn promotion?
I am aware that the king only moves 1 square at a time, and the knight likewise takes a hwile to get from 1 side of the board to the other, but the point is that the enemy bishop may only be able to dance around a diagonal until the inevitable happens. I am simply wondering out loud.
TheUltimateChampion wrote:
dannyhume wrote:
Why is a bishop better than a knight?!...it can only control half the squares on the board. I understand the synergy argument of why a bishop pair is superior to a knight pair or KB pair, but a lone bishop against a lone knight? Even Capa said that Q+N > Q+B.
Queen can move like bishop but not like knights. Hence coordination with knight is better. Bishop lonely controls minimum 8 max 15 where knight controls min 2 max 8. Calculate properly.
According to Watson, the actual statistics of Queen+bishop vs Queen+knight endgames are even , so there is no evidence to support the assertion that queen+knight work better together.
There is a lot of philosophizing on this page, which is not neccesary I think. One could simply gather statistics of a large number of games with bishops on one side vs knights on the other (even starting in middle game) and see which side wins out. The large number will correct for the fact that in some games one side will be a better player than the other, etc etc.
Dec 29, 2011
0
#14
TheUltimateChampion wrote:
Don't Post Mindless stupid things. Analyse yourself first properly.Bishops are always slightly better than knights.
You should try taking your own advice.
It all depends on the situation.
Situation 1 :
In situation 1, White has a Bishop and Black has a Knight. This game is a won game for White as his Bishop can zip around the whole board in one move and can stop Black's pawn from promoting whereas Black's Knight needs to make a few moves to stop White's pawn.
Situation 2 :
In this highly unlikely but possible position, White's Bishops are completely useless whereas Black's Knights could hop above his own pawns and attack White's pawns.
In my conclusion which is yet is to criticised, I feel Bishops are better in endgames. Bishops can pin pieces, which a Knight cant do and skewer pieces, another ability Knights cant do. However, Knights have does have does tricky forks which I fall into sometimes, and in cramped up positions, my Knights have the upper hand.
TheUltimateChampion wrote:
InvisibleDuck wrote:
TheUltimateChampion wrote:
dannyhume wrote:
Why is a bishop better than a knight?!...it can only control half the squares on the board. I understand the synergy argument of why a bishop pair is superior to a knight pair or KB pair, but a lone bishop against a lone knight? Even Capa said that Q+N > Q+B.
Queen can move like bishop but not like knights. Hence coordination with knight is better. Bishop lonely controls minimum 8 max 15 where knight controls min 2 max 8. Calculate properly.
According to Watson, the actual statistics of Queen+bishop vs Queen+knight endgames are even , so there is no evidence to support the assertion that queen+knight work better together.
There is a lot of philosophizing on this page, which is not neccesary I think. One could simply gather statistics of a large number of games with bishops on one side vs knights on the other (even starting in middle game) and see which side wins out. The large number will correct for the fact that in some games one side will be a better player than the other, etc etc.
Where did you read that statistically by watson ?
Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes are experts ok, dont doubt them....
No, it was poorly explained. If you think bishop vs knight is about pinning and forks then you clearly misunderstand the debate.
The statistics are nice, and show what we (hopefully) already knew, that the two are very nearly equal.
TheUltimateChampion wrote:
Cystem_Phailure wrote:
TheUltimateChampion wrote:
Don't Post Mindless stupid things. Analyse yourself first properly.Bishops are always slightly better than knights.
You should try taking your own advice.
Why should I ? I don't post stupid things.
The highlighted statement about bishops is stupid considering you took the time to post a page out of a book showing otherwise.
Someone set up Fritz or Rybka to play itself with a starting position with 4 knights vs. 4 bishops with colors rotating back and forth (maybe a 10 game series) and post the results. 
http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm
The method of attacking this problem was to start with a large database of about 925,000 games, then to select out of only those games where both players were listed as having FIDE ratings of at least 2300 (the standard for the FIDE Master title), so that my conclusions would be based on the play of reasonably strong players. That still left me with nearly 300,000 games. Using the "ChessBase" program (other database programs also have the needed capability), I would select the games with various specified material imbalances and with specified pieces being present or absent. Then I would record the average difference between performance rating and player rating, rather than using the raw scoring percentage, as that might be biased if stronger players tended to have one side of the imbalance.
OK, what did I discover? Let's start with the age-old question of bishop vs. knight. The conclusions are clear and consistent: . . . an unpaired bishop and knight are of equal value (within 1/50 of a pawn, statistically meaningless), so positional considerations (such as open or closed position, good or bad bishop, etc.) will decide which piece is better.
Bishops are usually better most of the time, though